Escalators, also known as moving stairs, and when horizontal moving walks, are a useful aid in moving people from one elevation to another. An escalator is composed of two endless chains to which steps are attached. These chains travel from the lowest elevation of the escalator up to the highest elevation, around a set of sprockets, back to the bottom and around another set of sprockets where they endlessly repeat the journey. It is these chains to which the steps attach, linked one after another that provide for the moving stairs that people ride. In order to contain, support and conceal the mechanisms and apparatus of an escalator, a structural truss is provided. This truss is the main skeleton of the escalator and is concealed beneath the portion that is ridden. At each end of the truss is a pit, with there being two pits, an upper and a lower. The upper pit, located at the upper elevation, contains the escalator driving system along with the controller assembly, which is composed of a multitude of electrical components such as relays and transformers, all contained in an enclosure, with the total weight of this controller assembly being in excess of what is safe for a human to lift without the chance of injury.
This upper pit is contained underneath the portion of the escalator called the floor plate. The floor plate is the stationary floor area at each egress of the escalator. These floor plates are removable to provide access to the pit below. Because of space constrictions it is required to remove the controller assembly from the escalator pit to perform work on it, and as such, controller assemblies are constructed with flexible cables to allow their removal from the pit. This removal process is done manually by the service technician performing work on the escalator. Because the controller assembly is located beneath the technician, the technician is forced to bend over putting them and their back in a weakened position. This combined with the weight of the controller assembly poses a dangerous situation that can easily result in injury. There are no solutions in existence. Manufacturers have provided handles on top of the controller assembly enclosure as an aid in gripping the controller assembly for manual removal, but no actual device to replace human effort has been provided.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a means for removal of an escalator controller assembly from an escalator pit that will eliminate the need for manual removal, thereby eliminating the potential for human injury.
It is another object of this invention to provide a means for removal of an escalator controller assembly from an escalator pit, thereby eliminating the possibility of damage to the escalator components such as flexible control cables, drives and other components that may be damaged by human entry into the pit for the purpose of controller assembly removal.
It is another object of this invention to provide a means for removal of an escalator controller assembly from an escalator pit, eliminating the chance for human injury that may happen from entering into the pit for the purpose of controller assembly removal.
It is another object of this invention to provide a means for removal of an escalator controller assembly from an escalator pit, thereby eliminating the need for human contact with the controller assembly and the chance for damage to the controller assembly possibly caused by dropping or hitting the controller while removing it.
It is another object of this invention to provide a means for removal of an escalator controller assembly from an escalator pit, thereby eliminating the need for human contact with the controller assembly and the potential for human injury that could be incurred due to dropping the controller on an appendage.
It is another object of this invention to provide a means for removal of an escalator controller assembly from an escalator pit, thereby providing a physical means to attach the flexible control cables to, to prevent their snagging and dislodging from the controller during removal.